ESPN gets out-Foxed

A couple of days after the fact, I had to mention this item in The Big Lead about Jay Glazer's scoop of the great "ESPN Army" on the Brett Favre trade.

Seems that Glazer "outfoxed" as many as seven ESPN reporters (heavy-hitters, all of them) to get the news about the Packers sending Brett to the Jets. That ranks as a damn-near Herculean feat these days (the Associated Press recently ran a photo with ESPN's Rachel Nichols chatting with Favre in a parking lot during the height of the drama. She's a virtual celebrity, ya know?).

Trust me. Back in my former life as a sportswriter, I had the misfortune to compete against the reach and resources of ESPN. There were few things worse than settling into the couch after a 12-hour day of work and seeing something on ESPN's crawl about some breaking bit of news from one of the teams you cover. And it happened all the time.

Maybe I really like to see the underdog prevail (though Fox Sports is far from some backwater media outpost). Or maybe I prefer to see that ESPN doesn't have a complete monopoly on sports coverage. Or maybe I'm just a hater.

Either way, I salute Glazer for his efforts.

Also, Sports Saturday might actually become Sports Sunday at this rate. Lots to do today, folks. And I can't accomplish much of it sitting in front of the Dell Inspiron.

And, yes, I really like parentheses. Continue Reading »

Something about John Edwards

I feel obliged to say something about John Edwards' admission yesterday to an affair with a campaign worker. But my heart really isn't in it.

That said, 10 thoughts for the record:

1. I have no idea why people are always so surprised by these sorts of failings in powerful men. As Chris Rock famously said: "men are only as faithful as their options." It's not that I believe all successful, married men cheat. But I'm rarely shocked when it happens.

2. That said, I always expected Edwards - a handsome, charismatic and extremely rich guy - would have done a little better than Rielle Hunter. Why don't these sorts of men ever get caught cheating with someone like, say, Diane Lane? I don't get it. I mean, I'm just saying.

3. I think McCain was really smart to avoid commenting on Edwards' saga. I imagine that adultery is a topic that he doesn't really want to get into. Same goes for Hillary Clinton.

4. The interview Hunter gave with "Extra" last year was telling. You could almost see the sex in her eyes. And who gets that sort of high-profile job from a chance encounter in a bar? That should have set off all sorts of alarms.

5. Are people really that silly? They don't understand why Edwards still made a run for the White House after getting involved with Hunter? Because he didn't think he'd get caught.

6. It goes without saying, but I feel most sorry for Elizabeth Edwards. Not necessarily because her husband is a cheat. But because the revelation is embarrassing and, as most of us know, she's got much more important issues to deal with. It'd be nice if she never had to address this again.

7. Even when they're right, the folks at the National Enquirer still come off looking like creeps.

8. My friend Zen pointed this out in an e-mail the other day: if I ever go down in a similar scandal, I hope to have friends loyal enough and rich enough to pay for my mistress and her baby to live in a pricey home away from public scrutiny. Not to mention a homeboy to step up and claim paternity.

9. I hope Edwards and Co. aren't lying about where Hunter's payoff money is coming from.

10. The only way this gets worse is if that baby turns out to have been fathered by Edwards. If I were Edwards, I might put off that paternity test for a bit. It's not like he has a political future anymore.

A bonus No. 11: If Hunter really did get down with Edwards and former campaign staffer Andrew Young, that makes her something of a groupie. But it's not like that accusation hasn't been levied at her before.

Continue Reading »

Olympi-links

I'm not going to waste anyone's time with my takes on the Olympics, with the possible exception of the sports I know best and follow the most - track and field and hoops.

But here's a few recommendations for folks who want some dispatches from the front lines in Beijing:

My friend and former Shreveport colleague, Greg Pearson, was one of eight photographers in the Gannett family of newspapers chosen to shoot the Games. He's also blogging pretty regularly for the Times. He's had a couple of hilarious run-ins with the locals, who apparently aren't all that used to seeing black guys.

James Fallows of The Atlantic doesn't usually blog that often but he's changing it up for the Games. A really smart, insightful guy who's taking a global-view of the Olympics.

MSNBC offers a take on the nightlife and cultural crossroads that is the Games.

Another insider's look at the action in Beijing. Not necessarily the action inside Olympic stadium.

Just a reminder from the 2004 Games that a lot of the fun in Beijing will take place in Olympic Village. But there will be none of that, uh, pay-for-play stuff going on either.

And the obligatory nod to the New York Times' Olympics blog, Rings.

Enjoy. Continue Reading »

I know what girls like

There's a famous interview clip of Tupac in the months before his death, where he talks about the career-making advice he once gave former friend and then-nemesis Biggie Smalls.

Tupac's suggestion was that Biggie should ditch the hardcore, street-tough act and make party music geared for women. His theory was that if you could grab the ears of the ladies, the men would eventually follow and then a platinum album was a mere formality.

It was solid advice - and it worked. Biggie released "Big Poppa" and became a hip-hop legend. The tip has worked for lesser lights like 50 Cent, too.

For some reason, I was reminded of that unique bit of hip-hop history with the start of the Beijing Games on Friday. The Olympics simply aren't geared toward the male audience - and the TV ratings are better because of it.

ESPN's Colin Cowherd started this riff on his morning radio show yesterday, pointing out that NBC is making a hard sell on sports like gymnastics, the overly sentimental stories of the athletes and spectacular, showy events like the opening ceremony. Things that might interest women.

If the Games were solely about hoops and boxing and track and field, they'd rate about as well as those sports usually do without the pomp and circumstance of the Olympic brand. Which is to say, not well.

Thus, NBC has made some overtures toward women in an effort to drive up the ratings. And it'll probably work. It usually does - the Olympics are special in that made-for-TV way.

Women don't care about hardcore, as Tupac would have told you. But they love a good party. Continue Reading »

Never scared

The funny didn't die with Bernie Mac this morning. But it's definitely on life support.

From his first appearance on HBO's "Def Comedy Jam" in 1992, when Mac rushed the stage and let everyone know that "I ain't scared of you muthafuckas," Bernie proved that he was destined to become an irresistible comedic force.

His apex didn't last nearly long enough. Mac operated outside of the spotlight for far too long, from his small role in cult classic "Friday" - "the Lord is my Shepherd. He knows what I want" - to his hilarious appearance in House Party 3 to his star-making set in the "The Original Kings of Comedy."

AS UBM says, "I’m so glad he got to enjoy the sweet taste of show-business success."

It was in the concert film that it became apparent that Mac was finally due for a shot and some Hollywood love. His routine virtually scorched the stage, upstaging better-known (and probably better-paid) comedians Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer.

I watched the comedy show with a friend of mine - the funniest man I know personally and someone who once did a little improv work in Dallas and Chicago - and he could barely contain his laughter in the theater. In fact, he was laughing so hard at Mac's riff about a stuttering child that it got a tad embarrassing.

But Mac wasn't scared to go for a laugh about something that didn't seem so funny on the surface. He wasn't scared, at all.

And funnier because of it.

Continue Reading »

Cutting down pollution

Trolls are doing their part to destroy civility in cyberspace. Don't think so?

Check out this (somewhat) random sampling of comments from a Politico.com story about former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' admission today that he had a fling with a campaign operative:

"Edwards probably thinks he won't have to ask for a divorce, though. A funeral is a lot less expense than alimony. Timing is everything," - SmartSexy&Conservative.

"... he schlepped that cancer-ridden wife around to garner sympathy votes, while he was with Rielle breeding a child," - kerry za.

"Well, the marriage goes on until Elizabeth dies of caner," - Malachite Mouser.

These sorts of online lurkers, dubbed "trolls" by bloggers, aren't doing much to elevate the conversation, eh? James Rainey highlights the problem of certain types of Internet feedback in a recent piece for the Los Angeles Times.

Online producers, bloggers and journalists like myself thrive on comments and response to our content. It's a good way to tell if there's an audience out there for your work - it's the reason I try to respond to any and everyone who comments on one of my posts. But there's a double-edged sword that comes with the feedback - anonymous jerks who seek to pollute all civil conversation with "ignorance, profanity, impertinence and racism," Rainey writes.

Just check out any Internet discussion or message board. Really, try one at random. It won't be long before you stumble across abominable, inane and hurtful remarks. As Rainey says, "despite it's power to inform and connect people across cultures - the Internet all too often discourages, or coarsens, a healthy civic discussion."

I have no problem with vigorous debate, healthy argument and an exchange of ideas. But folks like Malachite Mouser prompt me to wonder if such a thing is possible in an online culture that seems to bring out the worst among us.

Even the trolls seem to agree - check out this response to Rainey's feature: "If God hadn't wanted idiots to rant and rave, spewing racist and inflammatory invective, He would not have invented the Internet."

A rare, insightful comment out of the Internet ether. Continue Reading »

Groupies for Obama

Are black journalists qualified to cover the presidential run of Sen. Barack Obama? By even engaging the question, I may have validated an inherently offensive query.

Over at The Root, Jeff Winbush takes people to task for raising the issue.

A lot of this comes from earlier scuttlebutt about the applause Obama received during his Sunday morning appearance at the UNITY Convention in Chicago a couple weeks ago. I missed the final day of the conference, thus I didn't have much of a read on the scene.

One of my former colleagues in Shreveport shares some of his thoughts about the reaction here. His was a much more nuanced analysis of the event than someone like, say, John Leo of the New York Daily News who said, "This was a convention of journalists, not a rally of groupies for Obama."

I'm not going to even get into the double standard applied to black reporters, which means someone like Leo might totally overlook the occasionally groupie-ish behavior of reporters in the insular world of Capitol Hill or those who scramble to take pictures with Dubya at the White House's annual Christmas party.

Not to mention, as Winbush writes, the fact that John McCain once felt comfortable enough with recorders and cameras and softball questions to refer to the media as "my base." Which black reporters do you think he included in that statement?

Anyway, I could also address the fact that plenty, if not most, of the attendees at the convention won't come anywhere near a political story, particularly one about Obama or McCain, this year. That includes myself, though I try not to air out a particular preference here for the most part. It's probably not too hard to parse the posts and figure out where I stand. But you'll never see me shilling for anyone.

That said, I'll let Winbush take it from here: If my white colleagues are confused as to where my allegiances are, let me make it clear for them: I am a human being first, a black man second and journalist last. Dead last. It's not even remotely a close call. Journalism is what I do. Black is what I am.

True. Continue Reading »

What's playing in my deck...

... before I head off for another long day of grindin' corn, as one of my former newsroom colleagues used to put it.

1. I Refuse Limitation by Goodie Mob
2. Milkshake freestyle by Kanye West
3. Can I Come Over by Aaliyah
4. Funkin' For Jamaica (Jamaica Funk) by Tom Browne
5. Summer Wind by Frank Sinatra

That was a pretty good mix, if I say so myself. Makes it that much harder for me to head north on Interstate 75. Oh well. Continue Reading »

Linked Up

There's a lot going on today. Let's get into some of it:

• A handful of Los Angeles hospitals have been accused of defrauding taxpayer-funded healthcare programs of millions of dollars by recruiting homeless patients for unnecessary medical services. Yet another reason I just can't co-sign on a for-profit health-care system. I blame Richard Nixon. This story prompted my favorite copy editor to wonder, "Why can't people just be regular?" The pursuit of wealth, I suppose.
• Prince Georges County law enforcement agencies might finally be in trouble. Berwyn Height's mayor will almost certainly get the federal investigation that he asked for this afternoon. The problems with PG County's overzealous officers have been well documented by blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates. Thing is, shouldn't it be insulting that it took the shooting death of two dogs to draw national attention into the problems there?
• Speaking of Ta-Nehisi, he linked to this story about a man who pleaded guilty to murder in exchange for a lifetime of buckets of fried chicken, carrot cake, calzones and conjugal visits. I was hoping the guy wasn't black but, uh, the name Tremayne gave it away.
• Our federal government can't be this dumb. Can it? Wait ... I think I already know the answer to that one.
• I'm totally behind Sen. Chuck Schumer on this one. Barack - and the Democrats in general - need to put on the gloves and square up. Playing not to lose is rarely a winning strategy.
• Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. In trouble. Again. Explain to me again how Kilpatrick maintains his grip on City Hall?
• This woman needs serious, intensive therapy. It's really hard to believe that she had a live-in, adult boyfriend at the time of her arrest. He might need to be checked out, too.
• There's a good joke in here somewhere.
• And, finally: Yeah. Sure. Management would never lie, right?

Continue Reading »

MLK would like to help you with a loan

According to the venerable SCLC, Martin Luther King Jr. would have wanted black folks to have access to all the subprime credit cards they could handle.

Economic justice, you know? Or not.

In a great bit of reporting from Mother Jones, we learn that a number of civil rights groups have been defending - and shilling for - predatory lenders even as the government tries to crack down on them. Even Al Sharpton is in cahoots with some of these companies.

Said William Jelani Cobb, a history professor at Atlanta's Spelman College: "It's an indictment of how far SCLC has gone from its historic roots. These folks owe their existence to a moral claim to helping other black folks. This is an outright betrayal of that."

Agreed. It's unseemly to suggest Dr. King would have ever backed a system that, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, makes the average payday loan borrower pay about $800 in interest for a $325 loan. Those borrowers are disproportionately clustered in minority neighborhoods, the CRL said in a recent report.

Fortunately, it's been a long time since the SCLC - or Sharpton, for that matter - has truly been relevant. And now it's easy to see why. Continue Reading »

Does liking Facebook make me white?

Stuff White People Like hits a home run with this item about Facebook.

I spent much of the previous two years mocking adults who created MySpace pages for themselves. It felt a little too "How To Catch A Predator"-ish to me. I was not down, at all, with the "Digital Detroit."

But, somehow, about three months ago, I caught the Facebook bug after someone I hadn't heard from in a number of years tried to "friend" me. My curiosity got the better of me.

Now I spend too much time fiddling with my profile, filling out silly surveys and accepting Pieces of Flair when, really, I should be reading or working on this blog. I've figured out that I'm as good a procrastinator as I ever was.

Much like Carl Thomas, I wish I never met Facebook even though I love her so.

And speaking of Stuff White People Like, how about Stuff Black People Hate? Continue Reading »

Does this count as part of the Madden Curse?

Already outdated.

Continue Reading »

"Puff"-ed up

"I have so many balls I'm juggling. I'm one of the most respected designers, producers ... aspiring actor. I'm making TV shows. I got six kids. Then I like to party."

Ladies and gentlemen, the good and humble P. Diddy.

So, I was watching the premiere of the new VH1 reality show "I Want to Work For Diddy" last night. The show brings together a dozen deluded folks from all walks of life - an Iraq war vet, a tranny, a recovering journalist, a bunch of narcissists - who are yearning to fetch Sean Combs' fruit salad and embarrass themselves for the privilege of being embarrassed by the Bad Boy himself. (I'm already mildly disappointed because the best-looking girl on the show was booted after the first episode).

Things unfold about as expected - minus the sex. You can read more about it here.

And it will apparently be some time before the contestants meet Combs (I refuse to call him Diddy), who calls himself one of the world's "most demanding CEOs." I have to disagree. He should have said "demeaning."

Not to mention, Combs and Co. must be fooling themselves. They always talk about working for Combs as if it's the entertainment equivalent to being appointed to a federal court. Not quite.

I'll leave you all with another Diddyism: "If you can't see the forest through the trees, you need to chop them muthafuckas down."

Sigh. Combs is a genius, I tell ya. Or better yet, he'll tell ya too. Continue Reading »

Oops

Gambling doesn't often pay in sports reporting. And, tonight, one of the local media outlets in the Tampa Bay area essentially crapped out.

When I saw this story about Brett Favre coming to the Bucs on the ESPN crawl last night, I knew the gauntlet had essentially been thrown down: either it would be a glorious day in that newsroom, or the story would serve as yet another cautionary tale about the rush to be first.

Guess we know how that turned out.

Infamous words, these were: "The chances of the trade unraveling are remote." Continue Reading »

More bad news for Morgan Freeman

It's been a rough couple of days for Morgan Freeman, eh?

Here's to a speedy recovery - of body, mind and heart for one of the greatest actors of our era. Continue Reading »

A no-show, as usual

What an inglorious ending for an ignominious administration. (I think that sounded better in my head than it looks on the screen. Oh well.)

Right now, Bush & Cheney are downright radioactive for the Republicans in this election cycle. What an incredible reversal of fortune. Continue Reading »

Ugly finish awaits Favre in Tampa

Those tickets that I scored to the Bucs' preseason game on August 23 may have just gotten a lot more valuable.

But it's important to note that if Brett Favre (pictured at right) does indeed come to Tampa Bay, I think it's a recipe for disaster. And I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Between digesting Jon Gruden's voluminous playbook, winning over a locker room that had come to respect the gritty, limited Jeff Garcia and playing with an uninspiring group of skill players, Favre may be headed for a disappointing finish here in Tampa.

Then again, the end is rarely ideal for any player of Favre's stature. Otherwise it might never end.

UPDATE: So, I'm still going to the game. Guess I'll just have to settle for a quarter of Jeff Garcia as my excitement for the night. Continue Reading »

Death as a matter of choice

One of the perpetrators of one of the scariest, most notorious crimes in Houston history was put to death tonight. Texas - no surprise - went ahead with the execution despite international opposition.

I've always been ambivalent about the death penalty, from the inequity in how the punishment is meted out (disproportionately to poor, brown people) to a general belief that humans shouldn't be in the business of handing down the ultimate judgment. More than eight years ago, I witnessed an execution in the famed Texas death house in Huntsville and left mortified at how anticlimactic it is to watch someone die.

But if there was a guy for whom the punishment was created, it was Jose Medellin (pictured above).

Medellin was one of three people condemned for the June 1993 gang rape and murder of Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, in a park on the northwest side of the city.

Ertman and Pena were raped and strangled after they stumbled into a drunken gang initiation rite while cutting through the park in order to get home before a curfew. It wasn't until four days later that authorities found their decomposing bodies.

Medellin never really disputed his role in the slayings. His was more of an argument of technicality, claiming that authorities refused his right to contact the Mexican consulate after his arrest, violating a 1963 treaty signed by the United States and 165 other countries that should have allowed him to do so.

That makes it easier for me to digest the thought of him, now 33, being sent to his death Tuesday. I was only 15 when Ertman and Pena were killed; we could have been classmates. I remember thinking that girls my age weren't supposed to die that way, that no one was born for that sort of ending. If teenage girls weren't safe, then what chance did the rest of us have?

Maybe Medellin wasn't brought into this world to die on the gurney either. But he and his friends never gave Ertman and Pena (pictured below, at right) a choice in the matter. And that's why I'm not all that interested in defending his rights tonight.

Continue Reading »

Court disorder

Proof that one of the saddest places in the world is the street in front of a courthouse. It also is the source of some, if not most, of the interesting stories going on in any town.

And that's before you actually get inside the courtroom. Goodness, the human misery in those places can be overwhelming if you're not careful. Continue Reading »

Toby Keith: Barack not that black

Someone call Dave Chappelle. Toby Keith knows black people.

Also, here's a good look into the nonsense that feeds talk about an "uppity" Obama. The nerve of that guy. He actually thinks he can be president. Continue Reading »

No more (pit) bull

Given a choice, I'd feel more comfortable living next door to a neighbor who was stockpiling an armory than someone who owned a pit bull.

I read police reports like this a couple times a week at my day job but rarely do the stories end with a small boy in the hospital. And there's not much in the way of statistics that confirms my concerns - usually smaller dogs like Daschunds and Chihuahuas finish near the top of any list of aggressive breeds.

But my instincts and evidence of the damage pit bulls can wreak on unsuspecting humans won't allow me to listen to the numbers or pleas of animal activists.

(This story is a little old but still relevant to the discussion). Continue Reading »

Mariotti mucks up defense

Even when the Chicago Sun Times' Jay Mariotti is doing the chivalrous thing in defending the sexist jabs at Erin Andrews of ESPN, it comes off as impolite and unnecessarily mean.

Gentlemen just don't do this sort of thing.

I'm just not a big fan of calling out your colleagues in a public forum. In fact, I'm not a fan of it at all. I didn't like it when Jason Whitlock did it to Scoop Jackson and I certainly don't like it now. Continue Reading »

Good, bad and indifferent

There's an interesting conversation about modern sports coverage taking place today on nbcsports.msnbc.com.

With the proliferation of 24-hour cable networks, blogs and other online outlets, coverage of today's athletes - at all levels - really has changed. And not necessarily for better or worse. It's just different.

I rarely read deadspin.com or thebiglead.com but, somehow, most of the conversations I have about sports and athletes with my friends and colleagues center on the sort of items you might find on those blogs. For instance, I know a lot more about Travis Henry's issues with condoms than I do about his prospects for a return to the NFL .

I don't know that I'm smarter about sports despite all these new avenues to information. But I seem to know a lot more about the guys who play them. Meaningless sports tidbits tend to overwhelm my inbox these days: Many of them focusing on the drinking exploits of some major-college quarterback (of questionable relevance) or pictures of Erin Andrews (certainly a bonus).

To me, there's really no answer to the issue of whether this is a bad thing or a good thing - athletes and traditional sports reporters lean toward the former, bloggers and online producers trend toward the latter. Mostly, I'm just sort of relieved that my days as a sportswriter appear to be over. Continue Reading »

Ya heard?

Nothing gets a 30-ish (or 30) black man like myself going like a good, earnest discussion about the all-time underrated or overrated MCs of our time.

Avery at the Stereo Describes My Scenario blog puts together an Elite Eight of underrated emcees. It's a very thoughtful and thorough list, including a few I had never really given much consideration to before - guys like Heavy D, Grand Puba and Masta Ace.

It got me to thinking about a handful other emcees that never really got their deserved props, in no particular order:

Beanie Sigel: I first heard of Beans on The Roots' raucous cipher "Adrenaline" on the Things Fall Apart album. He absolutely stole the show, which was no small feat on a cut that included Black Thought. Beanie really isn't built to be a pop artist, lacking neither the look nor the sort of material to reach mainstream audiences. And he spits a lot of the same street tales-type stuff (crack, chicks and prison stints) as other weaker emcees. But there's much more to him than just machismo - Beans simply has a fantastic handle on his flow.

Black Rob: There's no telling how much he's held back his career by, uh, repeated arrests and jail bids. Even now, I believe Black Rob is in jail on a grand larceny charge - going out of his way to live up to his moniker, I suppose. But his debut album Life Story is a classic of sorts. "Jasmine" is a terrific piece of storytelling.

Prodigy of Mobb Deep: Another emcee who has battled legal troubles, Prodigy is in prison on gun possession charges at the moment and should be in the Booty Farm (a Jimi Izrael phrase, not mine) until 2011. But his work with Mobb Deep partner Havoc in the mid-90s painted vivid pictures of New York street life for this Texas-raised kid. He matched Nas verse-for-verse in his heyday, and "Shook Ones Pt. 2" holds up even today. I think his stature was diminished in recent years after Jay-Z embarrassed him on "The Takeover."

Joe Budden: Quite possibly, Joe will forever remain an underappreciated emcee. His second album has been held up for more than five years because of record company beef (supposedly involving Jay-Z). Either way, Joe has plenty of freestyle chops but I've been more impressed with his introspection on that self-titled first album. "10 Mins" is one of the more revealing, raw cuts I've ever heard from a hip-hop artist - Joe goes over his depression, relationship issues and lingering resentment toward his father. Give it a listen. Continue Reading »

What's playing in my deck...

Here's a secret for all six (or seven) of my regular readers: I resort to this little staple whenever I'm in the midst of writer's block or I just need something to get the juices flowing. Tonight certainly qualifies.

Anyhoo, here's some of the stuff iTunes spit out tonight:

1. Shakara by Fela Kuti (This actually got me through a relatively serious study session this evening. Get familiar with Fela, folks).
2. Through the Fire by Chaka Khan
3. 30 Something by Jay-Z
4. That Shit by Cru (very underrated group. Da Dirty 30 is a classic).
5. Blame it on the Boogie by The Jacksons Continue Reading »

McCain's memory lapse

Apparently, John McCain and Co. forgot - almost completely - who was the original political celebrity on Capitol Hill.

McCain!

To make sure no one remembered that bit of irony, the McCain campaign apparently deleted an Associated Press article from its Web site that described him as a "political celebrity."

The Politico story also boggled my mind for a moment - I certainly didn't remember that McCain was in "Wedding Crashers." I guess Obama is the real star, according to McCainites, because he once made an appearance on "Rome Is Burning." Continue Reading »

Mining for gold

The brothas over at BSO did some major digging to come up with this gem about the alleged offcourt activities of LeBron, D-Wade and Carmelo from a Chinese tabloid.

Here's a poorly translated excerpt from the piece:

... the three stars in "fighting the" selection of all Vietnamese women technicians, said Macao and Vietnam technicians in the best massage techniques and the most Popular.

Judge for yourself. And, if you can actually read Chinese, get back at me. Continue Reading »

Gay for Rachel

If Rachel Maddow really wants her own TV show and radio show, someone should find the air space for her. Pronto.

A passage from a recent feature about Maddow in The Nation:

Unlike her beautiful, bilious conservative female counterparts or the cocksure boys-on-the-bus analysts, however, Maddow didn't get here by bluster and bravado but with a combination of crisp thinking and galumphing good cheer. Remarkably, this season's discovery isn't a glossy matinee idol or a smooth-talking partisan hack but a PhD Rhodes scholar lesbian policy wonk who started as a prison AIDS activist.

I'm not sure I'd be so generous to call Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter "beautiful" but I get where Rebbeca Traister is going with this. Matthew Yglesias, not so surprisingly, is a Maddow fan too.

So, yeah, consider me "Gay for Maddow." Or something like that. Continue Reading »

Black in America

I'm conflicted about this column that ran recently in the Washington Post. At first, I was looking for the headline indicating this piece from Courtland Milloy was satirical.

Certainly, it's generally understood that not all black men are wearing bandannas, covered in jail ink, smoking joints on the corner and figuring out ways to rob the neighborhood convenience store.

Or is it?

I don't know what to think anymore. Continue Reading »